The Swarm

Todd C. Roberts

It was also a relative failure. After selling six million-plus for Def Jam Beastie Boys had jumped to Capitol Records, spent a ton of money, and not managed to find one commercial hit. The record peaked out at a few hundred thousand records and the band never even toured. There was a bit of critical acclaim as the album was discovered randomly but Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique was located very near purgatory; the album had too much depth for your average Licensed to Ill fan and us music nerds who avoided pop music weren’t exactly looking to Beastie Boys for our latest fix. That was respect the band would earn over the next ten years, their cache was near-zero at the time, at least from my point of view as a kid in Indiana.